The opening of the first municipal park at Kolyma took place on July 06, 1935. The author of the project and the head of construction works is an architect V.A. Burdukov. By the decree of Eduard Berzin dated July 25, 1935 the park for culture and recreation named after G.G. Yagoda was united with the Dynamo stadium. A movie theatre with 280 seats opened in the park on September 10th. The park’s description.

Initially the park was nothing but a piece of taiga slightly touched by humans with the alleys laid and a few buildings erected. There was a children’s playground, and a small zoo with some bears, wolves, and predator birds. There were one soccer, three volleyball, two tennis and two gorodki (a Russian folk sport) fields as well as a dance floor and a summer stage.In the summer of 1939 when Magadan got the city status, some new buildings and amusement facilities added to the park for culture and recreation. A few kiosks and a restaurant appeared, a shooting gallery opened. A polar bear got settled in a separate building half of which was taken by a pool. Some sculptures decorated the park’s alleys, and a 40-metres parachute tower sprang up to the sky at the park’s highest point. A reading pavilion set at the furthest corner of the park was considered to be the quietest place for recreation, with a few dozens of folding chairs and a few hammocks.

The park has become the place for almost all sport competitions and then Magadan and Kolyma championships. Annual events dedicated to the Physical Culturist Day also took place here.

Nowadays a lot of new amusement facilities, game-playing machines and computer games halls work in the park, and festivals and public events are held here. There’re futsak, gorodki, volleyball fields, two children playgrounds (upper and lower), a children’s community, tennis court, two stages (upper and lower). The green mass area is about eight hectares.

MASK OF SORROW MONUMENT

On June 12, 1996 a Mask of Sorrow monument to the political repressions victims of 30-50s affected and died without guilt was opened on Krutaya (“Steep”) hill. A transit camp used to be stationed at the hill’s bottom and the groups of prisoners were distributed and taken to Kolyma from it.

The creation historySculptor Ernst Neizvestny, residing in the USA, visited Magadan in the summer of 1990. He brought and showed some slides with a design for a monument dedicated to the Stalin’s repressions victims of 30-50s. It was assumed that the monument set in Magadan would become the first one in The Triangle of Suffering complex forethought by the sculptor (Magadan, Vorkuta, Ekaterinburg). On July 23, 1990 Magadan Municipal Executive Committee for Working People’s Deputees made a decision to construct a Memorial to the Stalin Repressions Victims in Magadan.

The authors for general construction and mounting are the distinguished sculptor of our age Ernst Neizvestny and Magadan architect Kamil Kazaev.

On February 12, 1992, the Magadan church priest father Sergii sanctified the place on the top of Krutaya hill. The monument’s description

The monument is placed at the 200 meters altitude above the sea level. The Mask is set on a plinth 56 meters high made from monolith reinforced concrete. The height of the monument itself is 18.5 meters, with 100 steps leading to it. The Mask of Sorrow is a combination of classicism and abstractionism in monumental sculpture. The sculptor depicted a cerebral hemisphere on left side of the Mask’s face representing a human’s memory block. The Mask’s forehead, nose and brows form a cross, and a tear shaped of human heads is flowing from the left eye. The empty right eye socket contains an extemporary bell and under it there’s a prisoner’s assigned number – 937. On the other side of the Mask in a niche is an uncanonical crucifixion and a sculpture of a young woman crying made from bronze being the symbols of suffering and sorrow.

Inside the monument there’s a corner of a camp cemetery and conditions of a bing reconstructed. There are symbols of all religions as well as Soviet symbols – a cross, a David’s star, a crescent, a hammer and a sickle chiseled on the boulder stones along the stairs leading to the second view point.

On the view point in front of the monument there’re 11 concrete blocks with the names of Kolyma GULAG camps: Mal’dyak, Butugichag, Khenikandzha, Dzelgala, El’gen, Dneprovskyi, Serpantinka, Severnyi, Maglag, Canyon, Kinzhal. The blasts of Magadan wind are swinging the bell – the voice of the Mask. This is the requiem to the all who suffered without guilt in the years of Stalin’s repressions and purges. Explaining the idea of the monument, the sculptor said that this is the monuments to the soul’s sufferings. On the lower ground, before the start of the steps, there’s a memorial plate set which says The memorial to the political repressions victims is built in 1996 funded by the President of Russia Boris Nikolaevich El’tsin, the Russian government, Magadan and Saint-Petersburg cities administrations, Magsotsbank, Bibliopolis publishing house, the citizens of Russia and people from abroad. The funds for the monument construction were also donated by the administration of Anchorage Sister City (USA) and by the sculptor himself.

THE MEMORY KNOT MONUMENT

The Memory Knot is the monument to Magadan people the heroes of the war’s front and back area. In September of 1971 Magadan Municipal Executive Committee for Working People’s Deputees made a decision On building the monument of Eternal Glory dedicated to the Victory of Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Sculptor Vladimir Ivanovich Roldugin and architect Nikolai Nikolaevich Lushik from Saint Petersburg became the authors of the monument.

The monument’s description

The monument is an architectural and sculptural complex that also included a decorative wall with five bronze medallions completed in relief technique (the author is A.A.Arkhipov). The scenes on them characterize the Kolyma people deeds of arms and labor. The monument is set on a granite plinth five meters of height and five tons of weight.Five figures are fused together on the plinth. In the centre there’s a figure of a woman with a child symbolizing the Mother Land with three symbolic sculptures around it: soldier the defender, geologist the pioneer and a GULAG prisoner. All figures are cast from bronze.

The monument got the name The History Knot that then changed into The Memory Knot. On May the 9th, 1991 the ceremonial opening took place in the center of Magadan at Karl Marx Avenue.

The concrete Book of Memory – the slabs with the names of Kolyma people who dies at the front chiseled on them – was opened in May of 1995 next to the monument.In 2010 in honor of the 65th war Victory anniversary the mini-park with the monument was remodeled, developed and got the Victory Park name. On May 9th, 2010 the stela with the names of Magadan people the heroes of the Soviet Union was unveiled here.

THE APARTMENT MUSEUM OF VADIM KOZIN

By the decision of Municipal Executive Committee for Working People’s Deputees dated December 05, 1991 Vadim Kozin’s music saloon was created. A two-room apartment number 10 (adjacent to the apartment number 9 where Vadim Kozin used to live) at the address 1 Shkol’nyi (School) Lane was defined for this purpose.

In 1995 Vadim Kozin’s music saloon was changed into the apartment museum (V.A. Kozin’s Memorial Museum). Vadim Alekseevich Kozin was born in 1903 in Petersburg and was one of the most popular Soviet singers of the pre-war period. The singer’s performing style could be characterized as improvisational and impulsive. Before 1941 he released about 50 disk records, created and performed many popular hits among those were Autumn, Forgotten Tango, Friendship.

In 1944 the arrest stops the singer’s concert activity at the Great Patriotic War front and back area. On November 4th, 1945 the prisoner Vadim Kozin sentenced to eight years of camps, came to Magadan. In 1950 he was set free on parole, but stayed to live at the North. Since February 26, 1955 he had been the actor of Magadan Music and Drama Theatre named after Maxim Gorky. The last big public concert of Vadim Kozin took place in Magadan in the year of his 70th jubilee.

In 1993 in honor of the singers’ 90th jubilee Gold Autumn Festival was organized in Magadan, Vadim Kozin gave home concerts till his last days, with his Magadan friends, visiting performers and statesmen, and visiting foreigners among his guests. The famous singer died on December 19th, 1994 and was buried in Magadan.

The museum’s descriptionThe memorial apartment of Vadim Kozin is situated at the apartment number 9, where the singer lived since 1968, being a move-in at the time the house was finished. The music saloon is at the same place where it used to be when the singer was still alive at the apartment number 10, which was bought for this before the singer’s 90th anniversary. The official music saloon opening took place on March 21, 1993. The museum funds storage and office are at former apartment number 11. Nowadays the museum included the memorial apartment where the interior that had been surrounding the singer for many years is preserved and the music saloon where the singer hosted his guests and gave home concerts at the last years of his life. A careful inventory of the museum’s funds is being done among those there are unique magnetic tapes with the singer’s voice records, his piano and grand piano, the sound record equipment of the 50s and 60s of the previous century, a vast correspondence and diaries, photos and pieces of art, disk records, books and music notes library, furniture and personal belongings. Dina Akimovna Klimova was the museum’s first director.

Each year about two thousand local people of different generations and city visitors visit the museum’s excursions, lectures, and musical evenings.The sculpture group’s descriptionOn March 21, 2013 in honor of 110th anniversary of the singer a monument was opened in the mini-park next to the house where he used to live. The author of the sculpture group is Magadan artist Yury Stepanovich Rudenko. The author depicted Kozin the way the local people remember him – as an old man with rugged features and a sharp nose. Kozin is embodied sitting on the bench in his old coat and felt boots, a cat on his lap, with a folder of poems titled Vadim Kozin, the singer and composer lying next to him.

MUSIC AND DRAMA THEATRE

The building construction stated in the spring of 1940 based on Kolymaproject company design. Its authors were the architects E.V.Simov and P.V. Polyakov, and V.G. Drozdov became the project constructor. The official opening of the theatre took place on October the 5th, 1941 with its initial name as Magadan Cultural Centre named after Gorky.

On September 03, 1941 as the result of the merger of Magadan Estrade Theatre with the Drama Theatre company Magadan Music and Drama Theatre named after Gorky was created. The Drama Theater with G.N. Kotsman appointed as the art director was created in 1944 based on existing music and drama theatre at Culture House named after Maxim Gorky.

The building description

This is the first public building that laid the foundation for a spatial composition where the residential houses are combined with the system of public buildings and facilities.

The front faade is designed and completed with the foil of light piers and big floor-tall window openings as the main idea; the central part is accentuated with an attractive portal. The porticos and decoratively patterned columns are the special feature of the theatre interiors. There’re columns and coffered ceilings in the lobby. The strict building’s architecture creates the solemn atmosphere. At the theatre’s construction the architectural and sculptural works decorating the faade and interiors were performed in Magadan for the first time. The building has visibly enriched the architectural panorama of the city’s development.

THE REGIONAL MUSEUM OF LOCAL LORE

March the 30th, 1934, the day the museum welcomed the first visitors, is considered to be the museum’s birth date. The history of creation

The first exhibits came from a local lore exhibition that took place in February of 1934 and was dedicated to the First Kolyma Collective Farmers Congress. The Decree of Okhotsk-Kolyma local lore club bureau dated February 19, 1934, became the ground for the museum’s establishment.

The regional ethnographers-enthusiasts found and donated to the museum the minerals specimens, the remnants of the ancient animals, various tools and everyday life objects characterizing the material and spiritual culture of the Far North indigenous people. Thanks to some activists, with geologists, miners, teachers, doctors among them, the museum’s collections grew larger with every year with precious objects reflecting the local lands’ nature, its history, and its economical, social and cultural development. The Dal’stroi top management gave a lot of attention to the museum. For example, under the decree of the first Dal’stroi director Eduard Berzin the exhibits from the next agricultural and crafts exhibitions were donated to the museum. In no more than five years its funds included about four thousand items.

Alexander Poluektovich Khmelinin who was the Okhotsk-Kolyma museum director from 1936 to 1952, gave a lot of effort and energy to the local lore study development. It was his idea to create a botanical garden next to the museum, which is still a place of scenic beauty in downtown. The museum owns unique materials on the history of Stalin’s repressions on the Kolyma land territory. The Kolyma-Sevvostlag exposition has become of the first displays of this kind in Russia. Every year the museum’s researchers visit the former labour camps locations to add to the museum’s funds and do some photo and video shooting. The museum’s art collections include more than five thousand paintings, pieces of graphic art, sculpture, and decorative art. The works of Magadan authors, among them repressed artists, take a special place in the collection. Nowadays the funds of Magadan Regional Museum of Local Lore total more than 250 thousand of units, the Scientific Library fund totals about 20 thousand units. There’re six permanent expositions working at the museum.

The Time Monument

The sculpture was open on September 7, 2013 for the 60th anniversary of the Magadan region. The author is Magadan sculptor, painter, member of the Artists' Union of Russia Yuri S. Rudenko.

Sculpture is a version of the so-called imperial or Columbian mammoth that lived in the past on our lands. The figure of the relic beast is 6 meters high and weighs more than 10 tons. Such mammoths up to 5 or even 6 meters high used to live on the territory of then future Magadan region.

The basic idea of the monument is time, its motion forward, a certain connection between the past and the future. The author treats his work as follows: "Mammoths on our northern land lived several million years ago; when they became extinct, man came to the northern land and began to build mines, which eventually also ceased to function." Thus, the sculpture is the representation of the past, and all the details of which it is made symbolize our time.

The monument is not protected by any coating, and eventually is rusting in the salty sea wind, getting red-brownish color, the same color of coat this ancestor of modern elephants used to have. Also there are some elements established inside the structure that make sounds at every puff of sea breeze.

Holy Trinity Cathedral in Magadan

Holy Trinity Cathedral is the largest Orthodox church in the Far East. The cathedral resembles a temple of Christ the Savior in Moscow and is one of the highest in Russia (more than 70 meters height). Life-Giving Trinity Cathedral area, as it is also called, is more than nine thousand square meters, alongside with all its adjacent territories.

Magadan Cathedral is visible from anywhere in the city. The prototype of the voluminous architectural solution of the cathedral was the old Russian Vladimir-Novgorod architecture. Inner painting is done by Palekh craftsman. Painters of the The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius created two three-meter icons especially for this Magadan temple. On September 1, 2011 the Patriarch Kirill personally consecrated the cathedral.

The Stone CrownA natural monument that is particularly popular among residents and visitors alike.

As you look from the city over Nagaeva Bay you can clearly see a group of rocks on the top of a hill which are natural exposures stunning by their perfect form. Together they resemble a crown.

The rocky massif is formed by two ridges. The eastern one is the highest with the rocks breaking off to the sea in 25 meters cliffs. The Crown elevation is 307 m. The second ridge is broken and goes down to the sea. The rocks are very solid, and Magadan climbers have made some routes on them. The rock consists of gabbro which is a wonderful ornamental stone. This peak has long been known to mariners as a landmark to fill ships with fresh water. On the slope of the Stone Crown there used to be a ground for testing marine chronometers.

On the Stone Crown rocks there are many inscriptions, like ships business cards left by sailors. The earliest inscription Chisinau is dated the 27th of September, 1919.

Natural History Museum of the North-Eastern Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute (NEISRI) of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

It is created by the initiative of Academician N.A. Shilo. The total area of the permanent exhibition is about 400 sq. m, there are more than 3500 specimens and artifacts in the main exposition fund. These are collections of Geologic and Mineralogical section, and Ethnography and Archeology section, representing the scientific material that reflects the complex geological history of the North-East, and the culture of the nationalities that inhabited the area. The museum rooms are located on the first and third floors of the NEISRI administrative building.

The Natural History Museum has grown from conventional geological and mineralogical museum thanks to the unique discoveries in the North-East of Russia. The Seven Wonders of the Museum World include the most ancient substance in the solar system – the Omolon Pallasite which is 5.7 billion years old, Russia's largest iron meteorite Bilibino weighing about 1 ton, the world's largest Kolyma fulgurite - the trace of a lightning strike to the ground, a copy of a famous baby mammoth Dima , a fragment of an adult mammoth leg with an "alive" DNA, the original collection of agates and onyx from the richest and the most promising semi-precious province of the world, and an unique 100 sq. m stone floor, covered with polished tiles made from seaside scarn.

In the museum you can see the materials of crystalline nature, the age of which, according to experts, is more than 3 billion years old, as well as a collection of quartz and gold which were discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. In the mineralogical room you can admire the unique stone works of art – the table and two panels made in the Florentine mosaic technique by a geologist and artist G.S. Skirpichnikov.

Geological Museum of Magadan branch of Federal Government Insititution "Territorial Fund of Geological Information for the Far Eastern Federal District"

Founded in 1945, the museum exhibits a reference collection of gold from alluvial deposits of the North-East, as well as samples of native gold and silver. Placer deposits are organized by zones of gold-bearing sites and the Kolyma and Chukotka provinces.In the museum’s stockrooms there are more than 10 thousand exhibits. There is a rich fund of stone material that has been collected almost during the entire period of the geological survey in the North-East. Ore samples are collected from all fields of Kolyma and Chukotka: Natalka, Karamken, Shkol’noe, Vetrenskoye, Maiskoe and others. A rich collection of gems attract by its diversity and beauty, containing the unique landscape agate. The pride of the museum is the Golden Room which exhibits have been collected since the very beginning of the Kolyma province development. These are samples of gold, representing the scientific or decorative interest such as nuggets of unusual shape, large crystal-jams of gold which are quite rare. The biggest nuggets are now a part of the Diamond Fund in Moscow. The reference collection of the Central Kolyma and the Far East placer gold is stored in the Golden Room as well.

There are also historical exhibits in the museum such as photographs and documents reflecting the history of geological development of the Kolyma province, personal belongings of famous geologists and heads of Dal’stroi. The museum houses the personal library of Yury Bilibin. You can also find some exhibits of past fauna and flora of the North-East of Russia. The museum organizes group tours.In the Golden Room you can see:1) a nugget extracted from the stomach of a cow by the name Gypsy;2) an unique nugget which is a splice nugget of gold and rock crystal;3) an amazing piece of silver wire from Dukat deposit.